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Our First Tiny House Holiday Celebration

trainertinyhouse — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 07:08:28 +0000

We are spending our very first holiday in our tiny house.

Usually we get a big tree but living tiny means we need to downsize our tree too. We got a small living Christmas tree in a pot. We love it because it will last well beyond the holidays and is more sustainable.

He hangs out outside on our deck.

I think Ithaca is not amused with this photoshoot…

The top of Ithaca’s crate is where we put our presents.

Holiday lights in the bedroom loft.

and we transformed our tiny mantle into a tiny Christmas village!

Jumbo sized stockings in a tiny house. HA!

Happy Holidays from Jay, Jen, Ithaca, Toby, Zara & Luna!

Where Did We Go?…

trainertinyhouse — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 02:42:52 +0000

Okay, so we are not dead…I promise.

We are still living in an unfinished tiny house.

They say you should never move into your house till you are finished and now we know why.

Everything is inching along VERY slowly, but every time something is finished it feels like a little celebration.

In the meantime, we tried to make everything as cozy as possible for us and the animals so that we can feel comfortable despite the construction going on around us.

So, what have we been working on since our last post?

-Stone wall for behind our wood stove; we lovingly refer to the stove as the “squirrel” [http://www.morsona.com/morsoe-1440]

We still need to purchase and install this though, so a long way to go still we finish this area.

-Mantle above wood stove [with our christmas village]

-Dog crate for Ithaca that doubles as a table

-Mounted our TV on the wall

-Side table that doubles as shoe storage

-Built our loft ladder from scratch and installed the poles for it to roll on

We also put up some temporary window curtains, made a cabinet to hide away the cat litter box, and made more progress on the indoor siding/trim.

The other big news we have is that we received our tiny shed on wheels! Tortoise Shell Homes built this beauty for us so we can store our tools and other seasonal items in here.

Its nice to have a place for all our construction tools and materials so that it’s not littered all over our front yard.

Inside the shed—

That’s all for now but we will be writing about our first holiday experience in our tiny house in our next post.

Moving into our Tiny House (FINALLY)!

trainertinyhouse — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 16:46:34 +0000

We have moved and are living full-time in our tiny house since the beginning of April. It’s been a long, hard road with many (good & bad) surprises but it’s definitely been worth it. All the furry members of the household have been doing amazingly with the transition. Initially, our kitten Luna was freaked by the the coyotes howling outside but have since gotten used to the wild noises. Our cat, Zara has really taken to tiny house. She was never a big fan of our other cat, Toby (read; Toby = Enemy #1), but has completely stopped stalking him. Ithaca is ecstatic about her new awesome yard so no complaints from the only canine member of our household. Overall, they all deserve gold stars for being so positive and laid back about the move.

Just because we are moved in does not mean the house is completely done. Actually, we are far from that! We are making do with a half finished house and the plethora of boxes waiting to be unpacked.

Speaking of, moving day was very hectic. Thanks to the good folks at PUMA Moving for their friendly and efficient service. Without them, we would not have been able to get all our stuff safely to our house and storage.

Moving day; we still have so much stuff even though we downsized SO much. What the hay. ):

Also, it was raining the whole week we were moving (of course!). WHY US? WHY?

Toby helping us pack. We paid him in bonito flakes.

Here are some recent house pictures. It’s been too hectic settling in but we promise better pictures in our next post.

Our new yard.

Tiny house in the rain

Prepping our kitchen counter.

Stained and (almost) finished.

Ithaca loves the new closet. Don’t mind the collar. She was just spayed recently.

An evening at the tiny house. Everyone sleepy and quiet.

Our new neighbor dog! Another herding dog. YAY!

Tiny House On The Move

trainertinyhouse — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 02:18:54 +0000

As of Friday, we have officially parked the tiny house!

This past week we have been working to finish what we can so we can transport it. Thanks to Moffit, the friendly stranger that helped us load up the van with our building materials. We would never have gotten the house ready in time to hitch to the truck without him. Also a big thanks to our friend Justin for helping us unload the truck.

We did some trim work, more flooring, and the bedroom loft ceiling since the last update.

Before

After; almost done…

Messy tiny house.

Bedroom loft ceilings are in!

Finishing the flooring in the Study.

Planning out the bedroom loft.

Off we go!

We love the little ranch we moved the house to. We need to do landscaping but it’s beautiful.

Our new view.

I think Ithaca is happy about our new yard. She’s 6 months now and growing up so fast!

Our new “neigh”bor, Indigo.

We have to finish what we can in the next couple weeks to make it livable so we might not have an update for a while. We are moving out at the end of March and need to be able to move in by then. Wish us luck!

Kitchen Construction

trainertinyhouse — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:50:55 +0000

I keep saying we will probably be living in the house by “insert date here”. Well, it’s all lies! haha. If I say anything of this sort again, please disregard it.

Jay has been working on the floors and kitchen. He framed out the counters and cabinets and finished the flooring in the kitchen.

Ithaca puppy even came to help us out one day. She helped me while I finished putting in the sheep’s wool insulation in the loft and she was a trooper herding up the sheep’s wool for me. (:

We are moving the house in March and need to put some finishing touches on it to get it ready to move. Once moved we will finish the house on location. We are very excited to find such a great location and can’t wait to start living in our tiny house.

That’s it for now but we will have tons a pictures in our next post of exterior and interior of the house.

Sorry for the giant gaps in updates. As an apology, here are some cute puppy pictures. Little Ithaca is almost 6 months old now. Time passes so fast!

Holiday Construction

trainertinyhouse — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 19:55:46 +0000

We are making more progress on the inside of the house thanks to our friend, Justin who even volunteered his services during the holiday week!

We finished up the ceiling insulation and moved on to putting on the ceiling panels and putting in the hardwood floors.

We decided to finish off the ceiling with batts of cotton denim insulation. Unfortunately, we ran out of time with the insulation blower and it would be difficult to maneuver if we put in the sheep’s wool by hand in that area.

I hope everyone had a good holiday. (: We got a little dwarf spruce in a pot for our tree this year so we can transition it into our tiny house. We were hoping to spend this holiday in the tiny house but sadly, it did not work out this year.

Our puppy, Ithaca is growing so fast. She is 4 months old this week. Her favorite place to sleep is under our little coffee table and she can barely fit now.

Luna, our kitten is now 6 months old. She is as fluffy as ever. (:

It’s Been a While…

trainertinyhouse — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 23:55:37 +0000

It’s been a long time since our last post. We are, in fact still alive and working on the tiny house. I do have at least two excuses why we haven’t been updating the blog.

We got a puppy! She is the best, most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. However, she is a lot of work so it’s been busy juggling work, building the tiny house and taking care of this little girl. We aren’t crazy and just decided to get a puppy in the middle of building this tiny house. We were planning to be living in the house by now but things didn’t work out that way, unfortunately.

Meet Ithaca!

The aforementioned puppy chewed up my laptop cord so I have been without a computer till now. So that meant no updates on the blog either. Good thing she is cute!

Anyways, Jay has been working hard on the house while I have been taking care of the puppy.

Since the last post, we have finally blown in the sheep’s wool insulation and started putting in the inside walls. At this rate we probably won’t be living in the house till January. With virtually no hired help and Jay doing this with only one good friend of his for help, it’s not a quick process. It’s so difficult doing this and also working a full time job and I’m grateful and impressed by his determination and hard work.

Below are some pictures of our progress.

More Progress & Electrical Wiring

trainertinyhouse — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:49:07 +0000

Sorry, we haven’t been posting much. We are super busy constructing a house. HA!

But seriously, everything has been taking longer than anticipated and of course we had some unexpected issues come up. We are still finishing up the exterior siding. It’s really taking us forever!

We are hoping to get to the insulation and the interior siding in the upcoming week.

Bill and his wife, Sharon roughed in our electrical and plumbing this week. We are so grateful for their expertise and help. Thank you to Tortoise Shell Homes!

Pictures below of our progress with the exterior siding & the electrical wiring. Check out our newly installed gable windows, porch and awning, and shed on the tongue of the trailer. :)

Exterior Siding

trainertinyhouse — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 18:07:49 +0000

We’ve been working on the house (almost) non-stop since last week. Thanks to a couple of gracious helping hands, we made good progress on our exterior siding. Since we are working with reclaimed lumber, it is fickle and prone to breakage. Before we can put any siding on our house we had to clean each piece by hand with a brass bristle brush. It is tiring, dusty and tedious. We definitely did not know what we were getting into with this reclaimed wood. It is a lot more work than we anticipated!

The natural textures, color and character of each piece is well worth the effort. Check out our progress below. :)

Reclaimed wood from Trestlewood.

Prepping the house

After day 1 of work

After day 2 of work

Day 3 in progress

Working till sunset

After day 3

Day 4 in progress

Windows, Windows, Windows…

trainertinyhouse — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 04:06:45 +0000

….AND THE HOUSE IS HERE!

We finally got our house from Bill of Tortoise Shell Homes Friday after a couple of unexpected delays with the truck that was suppose to drive it up here. We are SO grateful to Bill for making this happen for us and starting our home off on the right foot. MANY thanks to Tortoise Shell Homes for the amazing job they did. We were really giddy when we saw the little house appear for the first time from down the road.

The windows and the sliding glass door were installed before it arrived here. Sorry for the delay on the pictures but we have been working on getting the tools we need together and working on the house these past couple days. It’s been a bit crazy, but here are the final pictures of Phase 2!

Stay tuned for Phase 3. This will be the hard part since it’s all up to us now. (Plus, a couple of gracious friends.)